Bruce Cook

Readers have expressed significant interest in our Dec. 5 post on the world’s third hardest material – BAM. Currently being tested at DOE’s Ames Laboratory as a nanocoating for machinery, BAM is thought to reduce machine friction and wear and, thus, make machinery operate more smoothly and energy efficiently. Because inquiring minds wanted to know more about…

(Also – see BAM Update here.) What’s almost as hard as diamond, slicker than Teflon and “green” enough to reduce the United States’ industrial energy consumption by trillions of BTUs a year? The answer is BAM – a ceramic alloy created by combining a mix of boron, aluminum and magnesium with titanium diboride. The world’s…